American Tower has exited from India telecom tower market as it completed the $2.2 billion deal with Brookfield-led consortium.
Brookfield-led consortium will expand its India presence as it will have 257,000 telecom sites across the country. India is one of the telecom markets in terms of mobile subscribers.
The buyer is Data Infrastructure Trust (DIT), an Infrastructure Investment Trust sponsored by Brookfield Asset Management (Brookfield) along with affiliates of investors including British Columbia Investment Management Corporation (BCI) and GIC.
The deal, approved by the Competition Commission of India, is for buying approximately 76,000 telecom towers from American Tower. American Tower earlier said the size of the deal would be INR 210 billion ($2.5 billion). Today, DIT said the deal size is INR 182 billion ($2.2 billion).
DIT currently houses Summit Digitel and Crest Digitel and is managed by its Investment Manager, Data Link, an affiliate of Brookfield. With this acquisition, Summit Digitel, Crest Digitel, and ATC India will be combined under the new brand name: Altius.
“The acquisition of ATC India complements our existing business and further strengthens our footprint, creating the largest tower portfolio in the country and one of the largest platforms globally,” Arpit Agrawal, Managing Partner, Head of Infrastructure, India & Middle East, Brookfield said.
“The acquired sites diversify Altius’ revenue streams creating value for our unit holders, while our scale, operational strength, and innovative capabilities position us to meet the evolving needs of the Indian telecom market,” Munish Seth, Group Managing Director, Data Link, said.
This is Brookfield’s third acquisition in the Indian telecom space. In 2022, Brookfield acquired a portfolio of 6,300 indoor business solution sites and small cell sites. In 2020, Brookfield has also acquired 175,000 towers from Reliance Industrial Investments.
In India, Brookfield has approximately $29 billion in assets under management across Infrastructure, Real Estate, Renewable Power & Transition and Private Equity.
American Tower had 224,502 communications sites including 42,905 sites in the U.S. & Canada, 77,647 sites in Asia-Pacific, 24,229 sites in Africa, 31,241 sites in Europe and 48,480 sites in Latin America at the end of 2023.
American Tower recorded a goodwill impairment charge of $322 million as of September 30, 2023 in the wake of the decision to divest India business.
American Tower works with Indian telecom operators such as Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea (Vi), accounting for 88 percent of its revenue in Asia Pacific region. The contribution of Vodafone Idea to the annual revenue of American Tower India was 3 percent.
Baburajan Kizhakedath
